“So it’s not – you just can’t go to the electorate and say, we blocked everything that President Obama was trying to do. I think you got to show them some positive results and some positive vision for the future.

And I’ll say one other thing to you: If we don’t enact immigration reform, I don’t – let’s say we enact it, comprehensive immigration reform – I don’t think it gains a single Hispanic voter, but what it does, it puts us on a playing field where we can compete for the Hispanic voter.

If we don’t do that, frankly, I don’t see – I see further polarization of the Hispanic voter and the demographics are clear that the Republican Party cannot win a national election. That’s just a fact.”

U.S. Senator John McCain was photographed during a trip to Syria with aman implicated in the KIDNAPPING by Syrian rebels of 11 Lebanese Shi’ite pilgrims a year ago, a Lebanese newspaper said on Thursday.

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McCain, a Republican, has been an outspoken advocate for U.S. military aid to the rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad and made a short, highly publicised trip to meet rebel commanders in Syria three days ago.

He has insisted that the United States could locate the “right people” to help among rebel ranks infiltrated with radicalised Islamists.

REMINDER: McCain is the one who picked, Sarah Palin!

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However, he may have crossed paths with men linked to a group notorious in the region for kidnapping the pilgrims, the Daily Star said.

The paper said that as well as McCain’s photographs with rebel commanders, one image showed the face of Mohammad Nour – identified by two freed hostages as the chief spokesman and photographer for the Northern Storm brigade that kidnapped them.

The image demonstrates the difficulty of identifying who the West might want to deal with and could possibly further inflame the delicate sectarian balance in a conflict that is spilling over Lebanon’s borders.

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A spokesman for McCain said none of the people he met identified themselves as Nour and it had not been his intention to meet anyone of that name.

“A number of the Syrians who greeted Senator McCain upon his arrival in Syria asked to take pictures with him, and as always, the senator complied. If the individual photographed with Senator McCain is in fact Mohammad Nour, that is regrettable (yeah, you think?),” spokesman Brian Rogers said.

“But to be honest with you, Neil, it goes back to there’s a lot of ill will towards Senator Hagel because when he was a Republican, he attacked President Bush mercilessly and say he was the worst President since Herbert Hoover and said the surge was the worst blunder since the Vietnam War, which was nonsense. He was anti-his own party and people — people don’t forget that. You can disagree but if you’re disagreeable (Hey Old Man, that’s one of the reasons Obama kicked you ass in ’08!), then people don’t forget that.”

Michael Brown, the former FEMA director infamously praised by President George W. Bush for doing a “heckuva job” during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, told a local paper that President Barack Obama acted TOO QUICKLY in mobilizing relief for Superstorm Sandy.

“Here’s my concern,” Brown told Denver’s Westword on Monday, suggesting that the official response was actually making people complacent. “It’s premature [when] the brunt of the storm won’t happen until later this afternoon.”.